


second turning

by liesmyth



Series: Captive Prince Works [9]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character From Future Tries To Convince Current Enemy To Work Together, Character meets a younger version of their love interest, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22427017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmyth/pseuds/liesmyth
Summary: “Damianos,” Laurent said, affably. “Come to finish the job?”
Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Series: Captive Prince Works [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1547890
Comments: 41
Kudos: 300
Collections: Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2019





	second turning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [st_aurafina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/gifts).



On the morning Damianos of Akielos was to arrive in Arles, Uncle called Laurent in front of the Council. A lot hinged on this deal, Uncle said, telling Laurent to keep on his best behaviour and making it sound as though it were his moral duty to make nice with Auguste’s killer. Such was diplomacy.

Laurent listened and nodded when appropriate, then sent for a servant to fetch Auguste’s badge of office and pin it to his chest before he went out to receive the Akielon party.

“Damianos,” he said now, affably. “Come to finish the job?”

Damianos, Prince-killer, recoiled physically as if Laurent had slapped him. _Good_ , Laurent thought, viciously. It was the least Damianos deserved after the way he’d been staring at Laurent since he had dismounted at the gates, intense and wide-eyed, as if he was a common admirer and not a barbarian murderer.

Uncle’s hand came to lay down heavy on Laurent’s shoulder. “Nephew,” he said, softly. He was shaking his head, looking stately and sincerely regretful at Laurent’s attitude. “I must apologize for Laurent’s attitude, Exalted,” he told the barbarian King, the man who’d killed Auguste and cleared Uncle’s path to the throne. No wonder Uncle had thrown him a feast.

“Laurent is so so very young still, not very experienced in matters of state. He and his brother were close.”

Oddly, Uncle’s words seemed to distress Damianos more than Laurent’s viciousness had. He’d gone pale under that Akielon skin and sun tan, jaw clenched and shoulders rigid.

“No, I understand. I— you know I’m here because I wish to make peace.” He turned to Laurent, speaking directly to him. “We have a bloody history. I regret that. I wish to make amend for the tragedies of the past, in whatever measure I can.”

He sounded earnest enough; it was the kind of speech Auguste might have given in his place. Auguste had been the age Damianos was now when he’d died. Laurent thought of how much paler the Akielon might look with his belly punctured, red blood spilling over the tiles.

Laurent smiled sweetly up at him. “Inspirational. Are you planning on giving Delfeur back?”

Damianos blinked. Then his mouth twisted; he looked on the verge of smiling. “Akielons have lived in Delpha for generations, as you well know. It’s not that simple.” His voice, loud, carried. Damianos had chosen an ungodly hour to arrive— mid-morning, which might as well have been pre-dawn grey for most of the court, but there were still a few dozen gawkers standing about, looking on, and they all heard him.

“If you have any proposals, I look forward to discussing them with you,” said Damianos. “When you’re King.”

 _Oh._ That was… unexpected. Damianos had spoken in that earnest voice of his, with that foreign accent, his face open. He said it as if it were a given: naturally, an heir to the throne would become King. He’d said it in front of Uncle, the Council and all of the onlookers, not that many people but the ones that mattered. The first person to recognize Laurent as the future King had been his brother’s killer.

Laurent kept his features icily neutral. Damianos was a fool and a murderer and obviously didn’t know a thing about Veretian court politics. From his wide brown eyes it was clear that he had no idea about the magnitude of what he had just said, couldn’t begin to guess how pathetically glad Laurent had been to hear it.

“Perhaps,” he told Damianos. One day, Laurent would see him dead.

The reception was that evening, and Laurent found himself seated to Damianos’s right. On the other side sat Uncle, who attempted to make conversation; Damianos’s replies were short and to the point, his demeanour so uncomfortable that a casual onlooker would never have guessed that Damianos had been the one to arrange the whole thing.

It had caused quite a ripple in the court when the Prince-killer had sent envoys, asking for a new alliance. He claimed to be acting in name of his late brother, the bastard, who had been tentatively negotiating with Guion when he had died so suddenly. Laurent, who had a few suspicions about the nature of Guion’s dealings in Akielos, had taken it as confirmation that Damianos truly was as stupid as he’d always imagined he would be. He had also assumed that the Council wouldn’t give Damianos’s ridiculous offer the time of the day.

He had been wrong. Both Damianos _and_ the Council were as stupid as Laurent had always feared, and he was in no position to deal with either. Councillor Herode wouldn’t meet his eyes, and the King of Akielos was barely eating and kept staring at him every time Laurent’s head was turned. He stabbed into his venison with all the frustration of his repressed ire, and the silver fork scraped against the porcelain with a rattling noise.

He heard a choked sound and turned around just in time to see Damianos hide his lips behind one hand. Damianos had full lips, Laurent had noticed, and long curled eyelashes. He also had insufferably broad shoulders under that stupid cape, and one of them would be marked with a scar from Auguste’s sword.

“Please,” said Laurent. “Feel free to take your amusement elsewhere.”

Instead, when the time came for the entertainments, Damianos remained sitting where he was. The atmosphere was somewhat subdued because the King of Akielos might be a guest on a visit of state, but the Prince-killer was hated in Vere and not just by Laurent. Laurent made sure to gauge the moods of all factions in the room when he went to make his rounds, letting himself be detained longer than he usually would in bout after bout of pointless small talk.

When Damianos rose there was a ripple of movement down the hall. Courtiers stared and pets stumbled, servants halting in their tracks with their trails of drinks only half-empty, every eye in the room following the King of Akielos as he made his way to the corner near the balcony where Laurent stood.

“He’s coming this way,” said Estienne, squealing into his wine glass like the Prince-killer was about to take out his sword and kill them all. Laurent ignored him.

He ignored Damianos, too, choosing to stare down at his own glass as if he hadn’t seen him there until the brute forced his way through the courtiers surrounding Laurent and placed himself at his side as if he belonged there.

Damianos spoke, low, close to his ear. “We should talk.”

The idea was so preposterous that Laurent stared. “Are you…” Damianos _looked_ serious, but it couldn’t be. His words were ridiculous. “I have nothing to say to you.”

He did not say: you killed my brother. It was rather obvious, the absence of Auguste like missing a limb, evident in the badge pinned to Laurent’s chest, the empty throne surrounded by red Regency banners, all the things that had gone wrong in Laurent’s life.

“We need to talk.”

“When I’m King?” Laurent asked. He hated Damianos even more for the flicker of hope those words had brought. “That’s what you said. We have nothing to discuss now.”

When Damianos spoke again, he did so in Akielon. “It’s about your uncle.”

Akielon wasn’t widely spoken in Vere, outsides of curses and vulgarities. Only a handful of people knew that Laurent spoke the language, and Laurent wondered what that meant. Did Damianos have spies in the court? He’d brought up Uncle like this, the one topic Laurent couldn’t afford to ignore. What did he know?

He walked off, just as every onlooker expected him to, hoping Damianos would have the good sense not to follow immediately. Some time later, after the attention of the hall had died down, they found themselves side to side on a shadowed balcony, a favourite spot of Laurent’s to conduct his affairs when he did not wish to be seen. Damianos looked around himself with a curious half-smile that only brightened when he saw Laurent. It was infuriating.

“Unless this is a very clumsy, highly elaborate assassination attempt, I believe you have information for me.”

“Not information. A warning.” There was a gleam in Damianos’s eyes when he looked to Laurent that was impossible to decipher. It looked… but that was ridiculous. “Your uncle means you harm. I know you know this, but you have no proof and no allies. You’ll have one in me, if you want.”

Laurent swallowed. He could play coy and denied, or make a scene and accuse the Akielon Prince-Killer of trying to sow discord among the royal family of Vere. Instead, he licked his lips, looking Damianos in the eyes.

“Why?”

“I mean what I say. I wish to make peace. I— I’d like to set things right.”

“I’m desperate,” Laurent said, bluntly. “I can’t afford to turn you down.”

Damianos nodded. “I know.”

“And I hate you.”

“I know that too. I’m—” He shook his head, hand playing with the folds of his cape. In the dim light, the purple silk looked the same shade as dried blood. “I regret the war, for what it’s worth. And what I did to win.”

His eyes fell to the badge on Laurent’s chest. Did Akielons know how to lie? Before today, Laurent would have said they didn’t. He nodded once, and turned to go back inside.

“Just like that?” Damianos’s voice called after him. Laurent didn’t stop.

“As I told you, I’m desperate. You knew how this was going to end.”

“That is the most backhanded agreement I have ever received,” Damianos said. “Tomorrow, I will ask your uncle to seat you at the negotiation table. I assume you have something ready.”

“I do.”

“And you will call off your assassins.”

Laurent stopped in his tracks. “I don’t have any assassins,” he said, guileless. Only an idiot would kill the new King of Akielos in the Veretian capital, and Laurent cared about more than immediate revenge. He’d sent word to the Vaskians instead, to have Damianos killed the moment he crossed the border back into his kingdom.

He watched Damianos bow his curly head, and thought about it would cost now to call off Halvik.

“Tomorrow,” Damianos said, then walked away before Laurent could get the last word. He stood there, dazed and strangely hopeful, breathing in the fragrance of the gardens and letting the night air wash away old sorrows.

He counted two hundred heartbeats, then turned on his heels to leave. Auguste’s pin was heavy over his heart as he went back inside.


End file.
